Trump's 'Board of Peace' proposal met with skepticism, caution amid shaky Gaza ceasefire
CBC
Winter hasn’t been kind to Gaza. Freezing rain has lashed the coast, and brisk Mediterranean winds have blown down tents that house many of Gaza’s population of close to two million homeless Palestinians.
There is neither peace nor reconstruction.
The two-year war eased with a ceasefire three months ago, but the fighting has not entirely ceased. More than 450 people have been killed since then in Israeli airstrikes and gun battles with Hamas militants, according to local health officials.
Each side blames the other, trapping civilians like Mustafa Abu Jabeh in the middle.
“It’s been a tsunami. Our world’s been turned upside down,” he said.
“For things to get better, we need a new government that will co-operate with Israel.”
That is the promise of the second phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, to help it transition “from conflict to peace and development.” It’s an ambitious sequel to a shaky first phase, which saw Hamas release 20 living hostages and all but one body of the dead.
But it has also seen many violations, including continued Israeli restrictions on aid imports to Gaza and on the work of NGOs and United Nations agencies.
And now the process itself is becoming increasingly controversial.
Trump has asked 60 world leaders to sit on his "Board of Peace," pitching a “bold new approach to resolving global conflict” in invitation letters.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has accepted, though on Sunday in Doha, Qatar, he said his officials hadn’t gone through “all the details of the structure, how it’s going to work, what the financing is for, etcetera.” Other leaders were similarly cautious.
A draft of the board’s invitation letter calls for countries to pay $1 billion US for a permanent seat on the board, something a federal official told CBC News that Canada has not been asked for and would not do.
“Canada wants money to have maximum impact,” Carney told reporters. “We still do not have unimpeded humanitarian aid flows at scale to the people of Gaza.” He called that a “precondition for moving forward on this."
Other countries have expressed concern about a charter attached to the Board of Peace, one that seems to see Gaza as the first of many conflicts this body would try to resolve, potentially sidelining the United Nations.
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